Congressional committee targets AEA donation rule

WASHINGTON -- A congressional committee investigating whether unions force their members to contribute to political causes has targeted the Alabama Education Association based on the testimony of a Baldwin County teacher.

The chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., sent a letter Wednesday to AEA President Dot Strickland asking for more information about the teacher organization's policy on collecting donations for political use.

"It is indisputable that union political speech is subject to First Amendment protections; however the First Amendment also protects against compelled speech of union workers," Issa wrote.

A spokesman for AEA in Montgomery said the group intends to fully cooperate with Issa's request for documents.

The committee has launched a public campaign asking union members to step forward as whistleblowers if they have been forced to make political donations, especially to candidates or causes that they personally disagree with. The committee also has asked for more information from the National Education Association, the Service Employees International Union and the United Auto Workers, and it is promoting the whole process on a website.

"Every worker should have the choice to decide whether their money is taken from their paychecks and used to fund political activity," Issa said in a statement announcing the campaign. "At ProtectingOurWorkers.com, we're listening to hard-working rank-and-file union members speaking out about how forced political contributions violate their fundamental rights, and holding union leaders and government accountable to taxpayers."

The focus on Alabama started with from Claire Waites, an eighth-grade science teacher from Baldwin County. Waites told the committee in February that, as a delegate to the NEA's national convention in 2004, she was ordered to contribute to the NEA's Fund for Children and Public Education, which was endorsing Democrat John Kerry for president.

"I felt a wave of illness come over me like none I have ever felt before. These who were supposed to be my people duped me into donating to a candidate I was voting against. I immediately went out, bought a re-elect George Bush button, and wore it the rest of the convention," she testified.

She also said that, during the 2008 national convention, money was deducted from her travel expenses without her knowledge to contribute to the fund, which supported Barack Obama for president.

It is not the first time Waites has questioned the donations. She lodged a complaint with the Federal Election Commission in January 2009 about the events that occurred in 2008. The FEC investigated and dismissed it in December 2009 because of the small amount of money involved and the "inconsistencies and gaps in the factual record."

Issa's letter asks, in part, how AEA assures that its members' political contributions are voluntary, and how AEA ensures that members are aware of how the money will be used.

David Stout, a spokesman for AEA, said the 2008 incident in which a portion of Waites' travel expenses were routed to the NEA political fund was the mistake of an untrained local leader.

"Ms. Waites was justifiably upset because that money should have gone to pay her expenses," Stout said Thursday. Stout said the FEC dismissed the complaint and that Waites remains an AEA member.

He also said that AEA members can choose not to have a portion of their paychecks sent to AVOTE, which is AEA's state political action committee that supports candidates for office.